I don't believe what is said in one of the posts up above that Byrne's only vision for Superman came from the Reeves show and STM. Byrne had to have had more influences for his take than that. I always thought that he was influenced by the Fleischer toons (greatest cartoons of all time).

His quote is something like: "My Superman is basically the Jerry Seigel/Joe Shuster Superman mixed with the Fleischer Superman set in 1986."

Also, to be fair and objective here, a lot of what Byrne did was thought up by MARV WOLFMAN.